February 16th 2018: Mike van Dulken & Henry Croft at Accendo Markets, commented to clients this morning: “FTSE 100 Index called to open +30pts at 7265, maintaining a shallow uptrend towards 7300 since Monday, but in a bearish rising wedge that could yet see the uptrend scuppered. Bulls need a break above 7275 overnight highs to extend the uptrend; bears want to see a troubling of rising lows around 7245 to put the uptrend in jeopardy. Watch levels: Bullish 7275, Bearish 7245. Calls for gains at the open come after solid gains on Wall St and a largely positive session for Asian markets (ex-China and HK for Lunar New Year) as global volatility continues to ease, back below its long-term average of 20, and equities maintain their recovery course. Japanese stocks are higher despite a stronger Yen, after BoJ Governor Kuroda was nominated for a second term, while further USD weakness (meaning stronger GBP and EUR) helps commodities like Oil and Gold. However, Australia’s ASX is the odd one out, in the red with Miners and Financials under water, the former having a potential negative knock-on for the FTSE … Gold has broken above $1357 resistance as the US dollar extends its decline. The precious metal is trading a fresh 3-week high as the global reserve currency falls to a fresh 3-year low. Despite retreating from overnight highs of $1360, former resistance at $1357 is proving supportive. This afternoon, US Import Price Index will be the final US inflationary print that could influence USD … Crude Oil benchmarks have climbed higher overnight, bouncing from intersecting support yesterday afternoon, however remain hindered by January falling highs resistance. Global benchmark Brent touched $65 before retreating marginally from its highs, off yesterday’s $63.4 lows, while US crude has dipped from $61.8 from yesterday’s lows of $59.7 -- EFG Eurobank in Athens reports that the February 19th Eurogroup will discuss, among other things, the implementation of the remaining prior actions under Greece’s third programme review, which constitutes a precondition for the disbursement of the next loan sub-tranche of €5.7bn. The deadline for the submission of binding offers for the acquisition of 66% of the Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator (DESFA) expires today. According to the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), inflation returned into negative territory in January this year after 13 months of expansion with the Consumer Price Index dropping by 0.2% on a year on year basis. Fitch is scheduled to release its updated review on the Greek sovereign today --- US Treasury yields retreated from yesterday’s fresh multi-year highs as investors are becoming cautious, indicating no rush to price in a steeper path of Fed rate tightening in the coming months, in spite of higher than expected US inflation data for January. With respect to global equity markets, risk appetite looks to continue to recover with the VIX volatility index moving below 20. In FX markets, the USD extended recent losses with the DXY index dropping to three-year lows earlier today weighed down by lingering US structural woes and the perceived erosion of its yield advantage - The European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee will give its opinion next Wednesday on a proposal to create a single, clear and fair European corporate tax regime, dubbed the “Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base” (CCCTB), which would also embrace digital firms. One major feature is to ensure that companies are taxed where their profits are generated, in a bid to crack down on profit shifting - Chris Iggo, CIO, fixed income, at AXA Investment Managers in a client note today says investors are moving money out of fixed income funds in response to higher yields and negative returns. “Now that volatility is rising; and yields have moved higher, there are outflows. It is not clear where the money is immediately going but the flows do suggest that, at least based on behavior, investors think things will get worse before they get better in bond-land. As I write, the 10-year benchmark US Treasury yield is closing in on 3%. This is the highest level since the beginning of 2014 and represents a 160 basis points (bps) increase in yields since the low reached in mid-2016. The pattern, if not the actual size of the move or the level of yield, has been the same in the German bund and UK gilt markets. It might be that investors are getting out of bonds a bit late,” he says. Iggo also notes that investment grade corporate bond credit spreads are more or less unchanged, year-to-date, but have widened in the last two weeks in response to higher equity market volatility, explaining that: “For long-term followers of US high yield, that benchmark yield is now back above 6% for the first time since the end of 2016. European high yield bonds have not seen such a large move, but the benchmark yield is back above 3%. I doubt that these yields are enough to entice investors back into fixed income just yet, especially when sentiment is bearish and expecting higher yields as we move further into the regime of monetary normalisation. Indeed, the risk scenario is now not about being short but about being long” - Miles Eakers, chief market analyst at Centtrip reports this morning that: “Global stock markets continued to make gains overnight following another positive day on Wall Street. The US S&P 500 is now up close to 8% from last week’s nadir. Equity prices increased after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Producer Price Index (PPI). The PPI, which measures the average change in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output, showed prices rose by 2.7% on an annualised basis, further supporting robust US economic growth. Market participants have for now brushed aside last week’s ‘healthy’ correction, with global stocks all on the way up. The euro and the pound strengthened against the US dollar, as the latter continues to weaken across the board.” - Are emerging market (EM) equities set to resume their outperformance versus those in developed markets (DMs) after proving their resilience during the global correction? NN Investment Partners (NN IP) thinks they will. NN IP’s analysis suggests that EM equities underperformed those of DMs by just two percentage points during the global correction of the past weeks. The asset manager also notes that the traditional weak links, such as Turkey, Brazil and Colombia, were not responsible for the underperformance, having held up well and even outperforming the EM average, the analysis shows. The only market that clearly underperformed is China. Maarten-Jan Bakkum, senior emerging markets strategist, NN IP, says in a client note today: “The Chinese market and particularly the Chinese Internet names were the segments that had inflated the most within global emerging markets during the previous months. While the Chinese underperformance should not have been a big surprise, it remains remarkable that other EMs that should be more sensitive to big movements in DM interest rates have held up so well. We are therefore inclined to buy into weakness in China and increase our underweights in markets such as Turkey, where macro imbalances are large, economic policies are becoming more unorthodox and higher DM bond yields should eventually push local rates higher.” Even so, there is a caveat. NN IP anticipates that the EM-DM outperformance trend in equities that started two years ago will be sustained only as long as the rising bond yields in the US and Europe do not force EM central banks to tighten policy; thereby keeping EM financial conditions easy and supporting the EM domestic demand growth recovery -

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Patrick Artus

A graduate of Ecole Polytechnique, of Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Adminstration Economique and of Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, Patrick Artus is today the Chief Economist at Natixis. He began his career in 1975 where his work included economic forecasting and modelisation. He then worked at the Economics Department of the OECD (1980), before becoming Head of Research at the ENSAE. Thereafter, Patrick taught seminars on research at Paris Dauphine (1982) and was Professor at a number of Universities (including Dauphine, ENSAE, Centre des Hautes Etudes de l'Armement, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and HEC Lausanne).

Patrick is now Professor of Economics at University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He combines these responsibilities with his research work at Natixis. Patrick was awarded "Best Economist of the year 1996" by the "Nouvel Economiste", and today is a member of the council of economic advisors to the French Prime Minister. He is also a board member at Total and Ipsos.

It’s well known that Germany performs markedly better than France in terms of trade balance, unemployment, product market shares and – more recently – standard of living.

But contrary to what most would think, Germany’s superior economic position cannot be linked directly to technological progress. In fact, when it comes to the technology sector, France and Germany are nearly on par.

Rather, the distinguishing feature that separates these two countries’ economies is Germany’s ability to differentiate its products and sell them at a higher price. This is an important distinction to make, with equally important knock-on effects.

A substantial increase in construction investment is boosting the economic recovery in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and China. But this is atypical, as the main driver of economic recovery is usually corporate productive investment.

Such a trend has most likely taken shape due to the expansionary nature of these countries’ monetary policies – collectively impacting investment in construction more so than on business investment. The trend could also be related to the fact that companies remain risk-averse in the wake of the financial crisis.

Let’s explore this uncharacteristic recovery in more depth, and see what potential consequences could be looming.

Since 2009, several emerging markets have benefited from massive capital flows into their economies. Recently, however, the direction of capital movements is reversing. While looking at the reasons behind this change, we seek to ascertain which assets have replaced emerging assets in portfolios, and where the capital is being invested, if it’s no longer flowing to emerging countries

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, both the US and eurozone have begun displaying the same economic characteristics that could be seen in Japan following its 1997 banking crisis. These include:

private-sector deleveraging,

a marked distortion of income-sharing in favour of profits,

increased holding of government bonds by institutional investors and banks,

and a rapid rise in public debt ratios, and financial assets held by companies.

Together, these developments are leading to an inefficient allocation of savings and a shortfall in long-term growth. But the similarities between the post-crisis reactions of Japan and the US and eurozone – albeit at different times – provide a means to evaluate how the latter economies are functioning in the post-crisis environment.

In many large economies, the real estate sector is clearly responding to an increase in central bank monetary stimulus. But it’s important to remember that – while a boost in construction can lead to economic growth – there are also potential risks.

Indeed, although the term real estate ‘recovery’ automatically sparks positive connotations, it can also lead to a decline in sophistication and the possibility of future economic bubbles. Furthermore, it diverges from a country’s usual route of economic growth via reindustrialisation and business investment.

Traditionally, real estate and other assets are gradually sold by the “old” to the “young” – but what happens when this life cycle is disrupted by economic events? In this blog we explore the effect of economic difficulties in Europe and beyond on the transfer of assets to younger generations

The distortion of income sharing in favour of profits has become a lasting trend in many OECD countries. In some cases, household demand has been reduced without being offset by a rise in business investment. With this in mind, we look to find out what could account for this downward trend in the share of wages in GDP.

To determine if the United States and the United Kingdom are more solvent than the Eurozone and Japan, a recent Natixis research paper measured the debt ratios of these economies as a percentage of nominal GDP – looking at private, public and total debt ratios.